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In this photo released by China's Xinhua news agency, people carrying their belongings walk in quake-damaged Gucheng Village in southwest China's Sichuan Province after an April 2013 earthquake. Experts say Oregon is due for "the big one" any time now, and the state's infrastructure is inadequate to withstand such a powerful quake.
(The Associated Press)

When it comes to earthquake preparedness, Multnomah County –
and the entire state – are facing a wide resilience gap.

That's the term earthquake preparedness experts use to
describe the time it takes to restore essential services after a big quake hits.
In Oregon, where we're due for an enormous earthquake up to magnitude-9, it
could take up to three months just to restore electricity in the Willamette
Valley.

After the 2011 quake and tsunami ravaged
Japan, Oregon's public officials responded with renewed attention to planning for "the
big one." In Multnomah County, plans are underway to improve public
infrastructure and formulate detailed plans for how service agencies will respond when an
earthquake hits.

But closing the resilience gap in Oregon and surrounding
states will be a decades-long effort
costing trillions of dollars.

During a briefing Tuesday before the Multnomah County Board
of Commissioners, Kent Yu, one of the state's lead earthquake preparedness
consultants, said it's worth the investment.
For example in New Zealand, a utility company reported saving $10 for
every $1 they spent on retrofitting infrastructure to withstand an earthquake.

Oregon, which has experienced about 41 large earthquakes in
the past 10,000 years, is overdue for another.

"It could happen tomorrow or it could happen in 200 years,"
Yu said. "We just don't know."

Many of the bridges are approaching the end of their
intended lifespan, Yu said, which gives local leaders with an opportunity to
rebuild with earthquake preparedness in mind.

"It's up to us now to lay down this generational investment
so the citizens living in the county can benefit from this infrastructure," he
said.

Private homes/people:

Many older homes in Multnomah County, which aren't
retrofitted to withstand an earthquake, would slide off their foundations. Portland City Commissioner Steve Novick has launched an effort to
find grant money to offer financial incentives for people to earthquake-proof
their homes.

Yu urged Multnomah County leaders to seek other ways to
encourage private citizens to get prepared, from reinforcing their homes to
stockpiling supplies.

"If every person in Multnomah County just had one gallon of
water, that's 760,000 gallons you have
in reserve," he said.

Public buildings:

Of Multnomah County's 10 largest public buildings, only one
– the Juvenile Detention Center – was built with earthquake preparedness in mind.
And even that building, Yu said, could probably use an upgrade.

"Most of our buildings were not designed to resist this type
of earthquake," he said.

Top-priorities highways such as Interstate 5 would take
between six and 12 months to achieve partial restoration.

Utilities:

Because many of Multnomah County's utility lines run under
the Willamette River bridges, we can expect them to suffer major damage along
with the bridges. That means residents could face long periods – up to a year
-- without running water, electricity, or sewage treatment.

The good news:

If the county invests in infrastructure, they
can make a vast impact on the county's ability to bounce back from an
earthquake, Yu said.

Take, for example, the 2011 earthquake in Japan. In inland
zones, Japan recovered 90 percent of its power supply within 10 days. That's largely because the country's infrastructure was
built to modern earthquake preparedness standards, Yu said.

Multnomah County could
achieve similar success with major overhauls of both public and private
infrastructure. Doing so, he said, will take time.

"You can't eat this whole problem at once," Yu said. "You
don't have enough resources to solve it, but that's okay. If we have one bit at a
time, eventually we can finish this elephant."